the rock-solIdness of him that is making rum harder and harder to bear. S he lugs Gabe to the pediatrician and is horrified to discover that the doctor has cut off her hair. She now has a man- nIsh crewcut that reveals the irregular bumps of her skull. Julia feels betrayed. The doctor inspects Gabe. "There's something strange. About his weight," Julia says. "I'm not really concerned about that right now," the doctor says. "I'd rather focus on this." She gestures at Gabe's arms, then his chest, then the back of his head. "What? I don't see anything." "Bruising. It's common, at this age, when they're first crawling around and bumping into things, but. . . " "He doesn't crawl around," Julia says. "He just sits there." The doctor looks at her probingl ' e you sure you're not being too rough with him?" she says. "You might be hurt- ing him Without realizing it." "I'd know! He'd tell me!" Julia says hod privately wondering how. Write lit- de notes? Use sign language? The doctor is silent so long that they both hear Juliàs stomach make a squeal- ing, spiralling sound. 'Just remember to be gende," the doc- tor says finall "Watch the bruises." She makes Julia look closely, pointing out the blacker-than-black marks that she says are sore spots. She talks about the "thumb-shaped" bruises on his chest, and the "finger-sized" ones on his back. "I'd like to do another CAT scan," she says, but just then an unearthly howling arises from another examining room. The doc- tor dashes out, and Julia grabs Gabe and his clothes and flees. ' J ....." onas!'" "What?" " N thi " o ng. He looks different. He's shaved some- thing off: or let something grow. Why is everyone changing their hair all of a sud- den? The difference is that he's clean- shaven, she decides, rather than sporting his usual half-grown stubble. His eye- brows look groomed. And hIs eyelashes are gone. Has he never had eyelashes? How could she not notice something like that? The absence of hair ought to reveal more of hIm, but somehow it has the op- posi te effect: his face seems harder, smoother, more artificial, a rigid mask. " J ....." onas!'" "What?" She looks at his hands. They're thick, blunt, made for crushing things or wrench- ing them apart. She should leave. She should just leave, right now. Instead she runs her finger down his cheek. It's as soft as suède. They make love on the couch. Jonas moves so slowly, so gendy, he doesn't break a sweat. Gabe watches the whole thing from his bouncy-swing. He's so heavy he doesn't bounce, just hangs sus- pended, the frame buckling under his deadweight. T he second time Gabe vanishes she knows she shouldn't panic. But she does. She panics more than she did the first time. Again she dashes up and down stairs, wheeling and whirling, her own hysterical breathing drowning out all other sound. Finally she stops, pauses, tries to feel on her skin the tiny air cur- rents stirred up by movement somewhere in the house. She finds him sitting in the empty bathtub, not crying, not lost in contempla- tion of his warped reflection in the faucet, as a normal baby would be. He's sitting, hands folded, patient, simply waiting. She lugs him to his changing table, whips off his playsuit, his diaper, turns on a bright lamp, and inspects him all over. She thinks she sees a new bruise on his ankle, then one on his groin. Then a ring of small ones flowering on his shoulder like a bite mark. Then one on his cheek. Then she's seeing them everywhere, his whole hide is lTlottled with them, coated with them. "I give up," she says. She hears Jonas slam the front door. "Bab " he calls. "Bab darling, mother dear, shoogums, sweetheart, honey pie, sugar lips, babycakes, cinnamon roll"- reciting the litany of eons ago, back when he was always kidding but meant it all and she didn't believe a word of it. She feels a frantic desire to hide-hide herse hide Gabe, fold up the entire house and hide it in her pocket. She crouches over the changing table and hears Jonas's foot- steps on the stairs. She is conscious of her exposed back, the vulnerability of her nape and skull. She tells herself that there is a masked intruder coming down the hall. That fan- tasy is preferable to the truth. " H " h " I ' h " one e says. m ome. S he wakes feeling that something is wrong. She wakes to vertigo every morning, but today is different. She trudges to the nursery; rotating her sore shoulders, cracking her back. The ,C 1!HE., A1J O íçEL. (u-J RE.TIREMEt--.l.T) HOVERlfJ&- OVER T4iE LAt>tES' BATHHDUSE. AT THE. SANÞ '"Nt Sl>RF CLUB l 'BoCA f\ATo1J